Even More Consequences
by greenstuff2
Summary: Catching up with the James family at The Barn ...
1. Chapter 1

**Quaseem**

Looking around their bright cluttered kitchen the morning after we arrived in the U.K., and listening to the noisy clamour of their brood of children I was struck by how much their lives have changed and how much they, themselves, have stayed the same since those far off days at the FOB when I first got to know them. Molly hasn't really changed much at all, she looks older of course, but that's to be expected, it was almost ten years ago after all, and she was then about the same age as Bashira is now. She is still as beautiful, as funny and as feisty now as she was then; how well I remember her when she first arrived, a beautiful little soldier with a will of iron and a big heart, a combination that spelled trouble and a pair of huge green eyes which followed the Captain's every move. I remember thinking that he should be very careful; she presented an extremely potent mix of a young girl who was not only very beautiful but very endearing and full of what I perceived to be hero worship. She was also the bravest girl I've ever come across, in fact I think she was the bravest young soldier of either gender, and it was during one of her exploits that I looked at his face and realised that, far from him handling the potential danger that she presented, he was as emotionally connected to her as she was to him.

Her connection to him became distressingly obvious on that far off day when he got shot and she was distraught; that connection is as evident today as it was then and it is plain that they love each other and their children deeply. I know that they were apart for quite a while after they got home because Molly came back to Afghanistan to see me, and more especially Bashira, and didn't mention him at all, then when she went home again she e-mailed regularly, again never mentioning him. It wasn't until they served in Turkey together that something happened and they got together. The next thing I heard was that they'd had two children and were married, I'm not sure which came first, she never said and I didn't ask. They have since had a third child, a little girl who is demonstrably as strong willed as her mother, although not quite as pretty as their eldest daughter who is enchantingly like her mother. Their little boy is a carbon copy of his father and is a serious and shy little boy; very endearing and I can see that Bashira is very taken with him.

The look that passed between them when Molly told us that they are expecting another child, made me, for a few minutes, really envy the Captain, or Charles, as I have to remind myself to call him; Captain is not even his rank any more, he is a Lieutenant Colonel, but old habits die very hard with me. My wife Alima and I decided to have only the one child, my daughter Camella, in order to give her the best we could with our limited resources, but I so wish now that we'd had a large brood like these two. Of course there is a chance that they might not have survived the Taliban either, but that is something I will never know. Looking around me I can see that material resources for a large family are not a problem for them, this is a very lovely, and I imagine very expensive, house.

I have very much enjoyed being a surrogate father to Bashira, she is a delightful girl and I will always be grateful for Molly's interference, as the captain called it at the time, in her life, but as I looked at her face when Molly told us about her pregnancy, I realised that Bashira has fallen between two worlds. At present as a modest Muslim girl, she has had no interaction with young men who might be potential husbands, she has no family to arrange any such meetings and I have no contacts with suitable young men. Yes, the arranged marriage her father was forcing her into when she was just eleven was completely wrong, but I cannot see how she is going to have a normal life with a husband and children of her own. I can see from her demeanour that she is extremely nervous around Charles because she is just not used to men.

I will make arrangements to be independent of Molly and Charles as quickly as I am able, I want to make a move to London to secure accommodation and start looking at getting exceptional leave to remain at the same time as getting work to support myself. I know that I am welcome here, they have made that very plain, but they have three small children, two of them very small indeed and Charles' teenage son from his first marriage and a puppy, as well as Bashira, Molly is insisting that she stays for the present, and Molly is pregnant, not to mention having a large house to look after without any help, so I feel that she has enough on her plate at the moment without me.

 **Molly**

Feeling like shit when you have people staying is the bloody pits, I wanted everything to be perfect when Bashira, and Quaseem of course, were getting to be part of our family. I owe her that much, but instead of things being perfect I feel like I'm gonna puke my guts up any second, especially when Charlie keeps waving that sodding coffee about. It's not like he doesn't know that I can't be anywhere near the smell of coffee when I'm up the spout and on top of that he's really asking for a slap this morning, walking around with a huge smirk on his gob as though he's done some something bleeding clever when he knows that I'm not exactly over the moon about it. It's not that I don't want it exactly, in a way it's actually all down to me, or me getting rat-arsed at his party and thinking it was a good idea, it's just that the timing is crap and I can't help being worried that the same thing will happen to this one that happened last time.

In a lot of ways it reminds me of when I got pregnant with Chloe, I kind of knew what was going on, but I kept trying to kid myself that it wasn't true, that I wasn't pregnant, it was only when I started chucking up that I couldn't pretend any more, and this has been the same. In the end I had to tell Bashira because otherwise she was bound to wonder what the fuck was wrong with me and her and Quaseem were all smiles and congratulations, so I had to pretend I was as over the moon about it as Charlie is.

.

On top of everything else, it's pissing down this morning so the kids are cooped up and are running wild round the house and bickering and getting up to all sorts and I ain't got the energy to sort them out. They're still excited about having people stopping which means Millie is showing off and being a right little mare, winding Marcus up so that he slapped her and I had to tick him off which made him grizzle so that he keeps wanting to cling to me and climb up on me which is all I bloody need. Then Sam started winding Millie up and she had a tantrum, so if Charlie could just stop being so fucking pleased with himself for five minutes, he could maybe see what's going on and sort it. I don't wanna have to ask.

 **Charles**

Molly's really not best pleased with me and I'm not sure what's the best way to be at the moment. If I behaved as if I was as unsure about this baby as she is, she would, probably quite rightly, be bloody upset with me, she'd be accusing me of not wanting it, but because I'm showing that I'm pleased, she's annoyed, and is accusing me of being pleased with myself, which is not true, well not completely true anyway. I know she feels shitty and that the kids got to her this morning, Millie was being a bloody nightmare, but she's also swept up in some need to make it up to Bashira for her crap life, as though any of it is her fault for fuck's sake. Molly is not responsible for Bashira's arsehole of a father, or her brother, or for her mother who took a hike when the opportunity came along. I keep telling her but she doesn't listen.

I agree with her that the timing of all of this could hardly be worse, but only because I think she should be taking things a bit easy and looking after herself, if this morning was anything to go by this applies especially for the next couple of months, she looked decidedly ropey, but I know that no matter what I say she is going to run herself ragged trying to create the so-called perfect home for Bashira.

Quaseem will not be staying with us for very long. We went to Stonehenge in the rain this afternoon, so that Bashira and Quaseem could see the ancient site and the kids could run off some of their energy. I made Sam come with us to pay him back for being a real smart-arse this morning and winding Millie up so that she threw a tantrum, which didn't help Molly at all. He really should know better at his age. Having a completely empty house for a couple of hours will hopefully mean that she can have a bit of a rest, but knowing her she'll probably hoover the sodding floors or something, sometimes she can be bloody obstinate. Quaseem tells me that he is intending to start proceedings as soon as he can to get the full legal right to stay here and see about sorting out his life, but Bashira will be staying with us for the foreseeable future. I know I don't know her very well, well neither of us do in reality, but I can see my wife trying to turn her into one of our kids, making her our responsibility and in a lot of ways that worries me.

Now that Molly has told Bashira and Quaseem, I'm going to have to tell Sam that we're going to have another baby. I was hoping to put it off for a while, only because I'm a bit of a coward when it comes to tricky conversations, but it'd be far worse if he found out by accident the way Molly found out about him and Rebecca, trouble is I don't know how to bring the subject up or what to say. One thing I must do is remember to make him promise not to tell the others, Molly will want to do that when she thinks the time's right and I know she'll think that it's too early right now, in case everything goes to shit again. Anyway Sam is almost bound to see this baby as an embarrassment and I don't think his version will be the way we'd like them to think about their little brother or sister, his version of how Molly got her Military Cross still sticks in my head.

 **Molly and Charles.**

"I'm sorry, I know I was being a right old Ronald Rich"

"A what?"

"A bitch"

"No you weren't, alright, yes you were but I forgive you, come and give me a kiss"

Molly was in the kitchen when the others got back, and Charles was completely right, she'd tidied up, taken Patch for a short walk and was peeling potatoes for the children's tea.

"Did you have a rest? No of course you didn't, you muppet"

"Well, there was a lot to do and I thought it was easier to get it done when you was all out of the way, sorry"

"Go and sit down and talk to Bashira, I'll sort the kids and we'll have a Chinese or maybe try that Thai place"

"I do love you"

"I should bloody think so"

"Have you told Sam yet?"

"Can't you do it?"

"Nope"

Charles stood behind her and put his arms round her waist, and started nibbling her ear then lifted her heavy hair free from the back of her neck and started kissing along her hair line.

"Oi stop it"

"Why?"

"That's what got us in this mess in the first place"

"Molly, it's not a mess" He turned her round to kiss her gently and put his hand on her flat stomach "It's a little Marcus or Chloe….."

"Or a Millie""

"Nah, she's a one-off and it wasn't my, what do you call it, my charm and magnetism or me kissing your neck that got him ….. or her" He laughed "You attacked me ….., twice"

"I'm still not telling Sam"

 **Charles**

He eventually told Sam when the teenager had gone to bed in the room he was sharing with Marcus, which meant that their conversation had to be held in whispers. Sam had known, in theory at least, that his father and Molly had sex, even though he much preferred not to think about the fact that his father, who as far as he was concerned was middle aged, still experienced the pleasurable sensations that he enjoyed when he thought about girls or paid the levy to look at certain black-market magazines that circulated at school. It had taken a few seconds to react to the toe-curling embarrassment of knowing that he was going to be forced to face the consequences of his father's carelessness every day. Sam assumed that it had to have been an accident, it was unthinkable that he could have wanted another child at his age and even though Molly was much younger she already had three children so she couldn't possibly have wanted another noisy little pain in the bum like Millie.

It wasn't that Sam didn't enjoy being part of a large extended family; he did, although at times he looked back with some regret at his former solitary status where everything had revolved around him, but up till now it had never been enough to make him even contemplate moving in with Penny and Bill in Bath. He loved his grandparents, well most of the time anyway, but Penny still treated him as though he was eight and would never in a million years allow him to be a teenager and have the freedoms that Molly allowed him. His dad then further pissed him off by going on to warn him of the perils of telling the others, even Chloe, which suggested that his dad thought he was a blabbermouth kid who couldn't keep his mouth shut. He wondered for the first time whether he would be allowed to go and live with his mum in Dubai, and what it would be like if he did.

OGOGOG

 **Authors notes: Welcome back to my parallel universe; aka The Barn near Amesbury, I hope you enjoyed it.**

 **In Chapter two, Bashira gets settled in at Uni, Sam starts making waves and Charles considers where his future career should lie.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Molly**

"Why Sam? I thought we was okay, you and me, why did you do something so" She paused looking for the word she wanted "Shitty?"

Molly had got used to Sam's reluctance to look her in the face, to the fact that he avoided being alone with her, with the fact that he'd stayed at school for the last couple of weekends, saying that there were rugby matches he didn't want to miss, even though Molly knew he hated rugby, but this was crap behaviour in anyone's book. He'd promised his dad that he wouldn't tell Chloe and he had gone and done exactly that, choosing the half term weekend when Charles was away on exercises leaving Molly to deal with him sniggering and Chloe smirking. She wanted to question Chloe to find out exactly what Sam had said, fearing a repeat of his 'medal' explanation but she was reluctant to do it until Charlie was back, she didn't want to listen to some crude description of how babies are made from their eight year old daughter.

"I'm sorry"

"No you're bleeding not, Sam, what the fuck's up with you?"

"If I used that word in front of you or dad, I'd be in the shit"

"You're gonna be in the shit anyway when your dad finds out"

"Are you going to tell him then?"

"Why wouldn't I?" She took a deep breath "There were reasons why we didn't want Chloe to know just yet and we trusted you, thought you was a grown up not a silly kid"

Molly had walked away from him, because she had a very tenuous hold on her temper and if she'd stayed she'd have said a lot more to him about his recent behaviour. He'd really pissed her off, acting as though them having a baby was some sort of personal insult to him. She knew that teenagers can have a hard time with their parents having sex, she'd hated it herself when she was a teenager and her mum kept getting pregnant, but that was because they had no money and couldn't look after the kids they already had, and she was always having to stop at home and help out, none of which was the case with Sam. He was just behaving like a spoilt brat.

Chloe was curled up on their bed pretending to read a book, but obviously waiting for her and she looked almost as if she was spoiling for a fight.

"Why are you mad at Sam, Mummy?"

"What did he tell you about, um…..?" Molly was struggling to find the right words to find out what she needed to know without going into the sort of detailed questioning that would lead to long and embarrassing explanations which she wanted to put off until she'd practised what she was going to say, or at least bought one of those books she'd seen advertised.

"He just said that you were going to have a baby, what's wrong with that?" She still sounded truculent so Molly knew that wasn't all he'd said.

"And that's all? He didn't say about how babies are made or nothing?"

"I already know all that, Mummy, we did it at school with Mrs. Jeffers"

Shit, did you? Molly remembered now the letter they'd received from the school about sex education, but although she'd meant to read it, she couldn't for the life of her remember doing so.

"Oh yeah so you did" She lied "So what else did Sam say? And don't say nothing Chloe"

"He said it was an accident, that you and Daddy didn't mean to have another baby and I don't understand how you can make a baby by accident. Mrs Jeffers said …"

"Sam's talking bleeding rubbish; of course we wanted another baby" Molly interrupted her; she'd absolutely no wish to hear what Mrs. Jeffers had said, they could talk about it some other time if they had to, but not now, when she wanted nothing more than to go and wring Sam's neck for him.

She contemplated finding him and asking him where the hell he'd got that idea from and why he'd thought it was okay to tell Chloe that sort of shit, but decided to leave it for Charles to sort when he got back. She was a bit worried about what he might have said to give Sam that idea anyhow.

She really missed Bashira, she knew Charlie was right and that she'd made a lot of work for herself treating Bashira like one of her own kids and ferrying her back and forwards to college 'n that, but she was good company, she was someone to talk to and she was good with the little ones and Molly felt like she was doing something to make up for stuff. Bashira was doing okay on her college course but had been finding the commute a bit of a bind; so despite her protests Molly had turned herself into a sort of taxi service, dropping the children at school and then Bashira at college. She'd ignored Charlie's concerns about her driving so much when she was still suffering from acute morning sickness and exhaustion, falling asleep in the chair by 8.30 every evening. Then three weeks ago and out of the blue, Bashira had arranged to move into a shared house with three other Muslim girls, two Pakistani and one Iraqi girl, and up till now, it was all working out fine, or so she said. Molly wasn't sure she would tell her if it wasn't, but she had to accept that she couldn't keep on treating her as though she was Chloe's age.

They had been and looked at the place where she was moving to, ostensibly to check that it was in good condition, and that it wasn't a damp dump in an iffy area, but really because Molly wanted to check the roommates out. She'd been worried that they might be sort of radical or something which had made Charlie wet himself laughing. He pointed out that it was just as well no-one had checked her roommates out when she was Bashira's age, because she was sleeping in a tent with eleven other squaddies, all male and getting herself tangled up with a Rupert who was almost ten years older than her. Molly said that was how come she understood innocent young girls like Bashira and Charles had almost wet himself again as he raised his eyebrows and said "You? Innocent?" so that she called him a cheeky sod and flounced out of the room pretending to be offended.

Despite her concerns about Bashira, Molly was actually quite glad when it was just them again, although she missed her job badly. She'd told them about being pregnant and they'd scheduled her on for the first-aid training sessions so she was over the moon with that, but there were nothing like as many of those as there were of the front-line sessions and they were solitary, so that she found herself missing the camaraderie of the other EMTs. The front-line shifts would have dropped off by now anyway with the end of the summer season but the Christmas gigs were coming up fast, and Molly knew that she wouldn't be scheduled on for any of them, which made her feel a bit shit. The adrenaline rush she'd experienced when she'd saved someone's life had made her realise just what she was missing by stopping being a Combat Technician. She knew at the time when she'd saved the bloke that she was more than likely pregnant, even if she was trying to deny it to herself, but the buzz was addictive and she couldn't help being a bit upset that she couldn't see it happening again in the near future, they wouldn't let her take a tiny baby with her.

Quaseem had moved out well before Bashira, renting a small converted flat in an old terraced house near the Tramlink Stop in West Croydon and had got a job as an Interpreter for the Home Office in Lunar House; which was fortunate as they were the people who were processing his application for exceptional leave to remain. Molly felt it was a good sign because she thought that they were unlikely to chuck him out if he was working for them, but Charlie told her that she was far too optimistic about the way Government Departments worked and that they didn't always do joined up thinking. Quaseem had started to make a large circle of friends, which Charles was very glad to see, he'd always thought that Quaseem was a fairly lonely man, but despite his new found popularity, he still made a lot of time and space in his life for Bashira, seeing her at some point over most weekends now that she'd moved out of The Barn.

 **Charles**

I've been camping all weekend on Studland Bay in Dorset, very beautiful scenery, lovely in the summer, but it was decidedly bloody cold and wet. I think I'm getting a bit long in the tooth for all this shit as I stood in the driving rain and watched a bunch of naked nineteen year olds freezing their knackers off jumping in the sea, something I would have done twenty years ago, but not now, not at any price. What I want to be doing is curling up in a nice warm bed and cuddling my nice warm wife and maybe getting up shortly to have some breakfast and read the papers.

I have given a lot of thought lately to the future, and have put some feelers out with some organisations that appeal to me, top of the list is the Disasters Emergency Committee who co-ordinate charity responses to emergencies all over the world so that individual charities don't go rushing off in all directions like headless chickens and they have invited me to go and have a 'look see'. I'm pretty sure that I don't want to go on and make full Colonel, especially as I will probably be sent to Colchester or Catterick or Pirbright, anywhere but here, and I can't do that to Molly again, or I don't want to.

Bloody Sam has been playing Molly up all weekend, I don't understand him at the moment, but I specifically told him not to open his mouth to Chloe and he let me down, so to say I'm disappointed in him would be an understatement. Even Molly, who is almost always on his side, whatever the issue, is mad at him, mainly because she didn't want Chloe to be filled with some teenage crap about how babies come about but apparently Chloe learned all that at school last term, I didn't realise we were paying shed loads of money for her to learn all that, well not at her age anyway, but also because she's still worried about the possibility of a miscarriage and didn't want Chloe too involved in case that happens. Then she found out that Sam told Chloe that the baby is a mistake, an accident, where that came from I don't know, but not from me that's for sure.

I was going to have a long chat with Molls about the DEC and the army and see what she thinks is the best thing to do, but now I've going to have to take Sam for a walk instead. I'm not going to give him the chance to slam off into his room and lock the door, so I got him come with me to take Patch out for his walk so that I can bollock him then see if I can find out what's going on in that head of his. I know he isn't exactly thrilled about Molly being pregnant, but we can't just send it back to suit him and I'm not going to apologise to my sixteen year old son for us having a baby. It won't be that many years before he'll be having children of his own, on second thoughts more than a few I hope, because I'm not ready to be a grandfather any time soon, Molly would piss herself.

I couldn't get anywhere with Sam, he just clammed up and said he'd apologised to Molly so what else did I want him to do, and anyway it was too late now to change what happened, and when I asked him where he got this 'mistake' bollocks he just shrugged. As apologies go, it was fucking pathetic, not an apology at all, just some very defensive crap with a hint of self-pity thrown in for good measure. I've no idea why he won't just open up and talk to me, I always thought we had a good relationship but you couldn't describe it like that at the moment. He said he was going to Skype his mother when we got back, but as they're three hours ahead, it'll have to wait until tomorrow; he won't be very popular if he calls her after midnight to whinge. No doubt I'll get my ears bashed tomorrow after he's spoken to her on account of my many faults as a parent, not to mention all my other failings as well.

 **Molly and Charles**

Charles was hoping that Molly would still be up and waiting for him when he got back, talking about DEC and his career and stuff didn't seem nearly as pressing as it had done during the drive home, but he wanted to talk to her about Sam and Chloe and he just wanted to cuddle up with her and feel better about everything. She'd already gone up but had made him a sandwich which had a post-it note on it saying "eat me", a bottle of beer out of the fridge which had a note saying "drink me, then come to bed" which made him smile, almost against his will. He ate the food then trudged up to bed swigging out of the bottle, feeling suddenly weary and incredibly old.

As he looked at her curled up in their bed, all warm and sleepy, he felt the familiar tightening in his groin and wished more than anything that the "come to bed" had been meant as an invitation, as it would have been once upon a time. Those days seemed to be long gone but his body didn't appear to have got the message, and he missed the way things had been when she'd been pregnant with the others and they couldn't keep their hands off each other.

Molly watched him get undressed through half-closed eyes and felt the familiar slow curl of lust in the pit of her stomach; making love using their hands and lips gave them pleasure, but she missed the feel of him and the way he held her when she came and the whole way he looked at her when he'd just come. She'd felt far too shitty to want anything for weeks, but the exhaustion and sickness had worn off now, it was just that she was still too tense and nervous to relax, still afraid of it setting off a problem with the baby, and so she kept avoiding sex by going to bed early or pretending to be asleep.

OGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Thank you for your kind reviews; I am glad that so many of you enjoyed re-visiting The Barn and I hope that you enjoyed this chapter as well.**

 **In the next chapter, Sam gets a wake-up call, Molly starts to worry about Christmas and Bashira and Charles moves closer to making a decision.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Molly and Charles**

"Don't be fucking ridiculous, you can't possible have everyone here at once, it's far too much work and anyway, where would you put them all, we haven't got enough beds"

"Okay, but we can't 'ave your lot without asking mine, then there's Bashira and Quaseem, we can't let them be on their own for Christmas, so who shall we leave out?"

"Molly, they're Muslim, they don't celebrate Christmas"

"I don't give a fuck what they are, they're not 'aving Christmas on their own, they're coming"

It was more than a month till Christmas but Molly was sitting at the kitchen table making lists of what needed to be done and what needed to be bought, something that Charles could quite happily not bother with just yet.

"Well maybe if we ask my mum and dad to come after Christmas they'll understand and then we could perhaps ask your family for New Year, or the other way round, it doesn't matter. And then Bashira and Quaseem will be here for Christmas itself"

"If your mum isn't here, who's gonna cook the bleeding turkey? You? cos I'm not"

"Oh yeah, there is that" He pretended to consider what she'd just said. "Okay so my mum has to be here and Bashira and Quaseem, and that means my dad as well and then there's the kids" He started to laugh "So how about we piss off, just the two of us and leave them all to it?"

"Yeah, very funny"

"Who said I was joking? We could go and sit on a beach somewhere, somewhere warm and sunny, you could wear a bikini all day" He was biting his bottom lip in a vain attempt to control the smirk which was spread all over his face.

"I don't care how funny you think you are, it ain't 'appening and I'd look bloody shit in a bikini" She looked down ruefully at her newly pronounced baby bump.

"No you wouldn't, you'd look beautiful, and you are beautiful"

"Yeah, fat"

"You're not fat"

They had been for the 20 week scan that morning and Molly was still behaving as though this baby had nothing much to do with her. She had smiled and said 'good' when the girl had told them that it all looked very normal but she'd only glanced at the screen and had opted not to know the sex of the baby when they'd been asked without talking to Charles about it and he wasn't sure that that was because she wanted it to be a surprise, he had the horrible suspicion that it was because she still had very mixed feelings about the whole thing. She'd put the scan pictures in the dresser drawer when they'd got back and hadn't actually looked at them at all.

In the end she went up to Stratford for the day and asked Nan what she should do about Christmas. Nan had tapped her knuckles lightly against Molly's forehead and told her that she was being a complete dipshit and why the hell would she think that they all wanted to get off their backsides at Christmas or New Year and traipse off to the arse end of nowhere when they could stop at home and go to the pub, and that her mother had been doing the same sort of mithering about where she could put all Molly's lot if they came to theirs. Molly knew it was Nan's way of making her feel better and it worked, up to a point, although she was determined to fit in a visit to east Ham and to take the kids with her before Christmas or in the week between then and the New Year, it would feel all wrong if she didn't see them at all.

Sam was going to stay with Rebecca in Dubai for Christmas and wouldn't be back until New Year's Eve and for once Molly wasn't sorry that he was going to be missing from a family celebration. He was still being as pig-headed and awkward as he could, so that she had a feeling of dread on Friday evenings when he came home from school, wondering what delights he had in store for them over the weekend. Neither of them had the faintest clue what was bugging him so much, apart from the baby, and there didn't seem to be any rational explanation for that, or for why he'd turned into a sullen little bugger who was determined to be as morose as he could. Molly really missed the cheeky little lad with the Harry Potter specs and the grin that used to love it when she'd hugged him or ruffled his hair and who even used to kiss her goodnight or goodbye sometimes. She wanted to sit him down and ask him to tell her what was wrong, she loved Sammy and hated seeing him so miserable, but he wasn't Marcus' age and she couldn't cuddle him better. At the same time she couldn't help longing to give him the sort of swerve that her brothers would have got if they'd behaved like him.

He still hung out with Chloe a lot of the time when he was at home and Charles was worried that his new attitude towards family life and the world in general would start to rub off on her, but her hero worship of him seemed to act like a balm on his stroppy moodiness, and he became almost pleasant when he was around her, except that is, when he remembered all about adopting an 'attitude'. Charles began to wonder what Christmas with his mother was going to be like if he kept up his present behaviour, somehow he couldn't see Rebecca being very happy with him.

They didn't find out what he'd said to her on Skype after he'd had a run in with both his Dad and Molly, Charles had been expecting an haranguing from his ex-wife detailing his shortcomings as a father and an, almost, human being, but it didn't come. Instead Sam had spent the whole day shut in his room on his computer and only came out for his meals because Charles wouldn't let Molly take him a tray, saying he'd come out if he got hungry enough and he found himself wanting to shout at him 'for fuck's sake pack it in' and then thinking that he was turning into an old fart who thought that a bit of discipline wouldn't hurt. He couldn't say anything because Molly would have sprung to Sam's defence as she always did and the pair of them taking sides wasn't the best plan either.

 **Molly**

I'd love to meet the wanker who said that Christmas is supposed to be fun, I'm completely bleeding knackered and it ain't even started yet. I've spent a sodding small fortune on toys and tat, so God knows what Charlie's gonna say when the bills come, he's gonna have a fit and I haven't finished yet, there's still all the bleeding food to buy, I'm just glad that I don't have to cook it because if I had to it would be pasta sauce out of a jar and everyone could like it or lump it. This is our first Christmas in this house and I want it to be magic, for the kids of course, but for us as well, Charlie and me. Last Christmas was crap in that poxy rented house, I mean we did our best for the kids, but it weren't long after I'd lost the baby, so I was a bit bleeding moody.

We've had a lot of Christmases together and, except for last year, they've been lovely with the kids 'n that, but the one that I remember best is that first one in the FOB, not that we was together or nothing, and maybe it's because Quaseem and Bashira are here and are going to be at ours, but I remember the way he looked at me when we was singing Carols and how it made me feel when he smiled, how it filled me with butterflies, and how much I wanted to go and touch him. Me and the kids have decorated the house, put holly all round and they've made paper chains and we've put them up with fairy lights all over as well as the biggest bleeding tree that would fit in here.

When I was a little kid I can remember being really thrilled with a titchy tree, I know now it was most likely plastic, and how there was always some presents wrapped in Christmas paper under it. I don't know how me mum afforded to buy anything, I've got an horrible suspicion they were probably moody, courtesy of Nan. What I do remember is the way me dad used to get bladdered and yell a lot and how one year he threw his Christmas dinner at the wall because he said it was cold, and I giggled at the mess. I can still remember me mum crying.

Penny took me and the kids to the Christmas Fair in Bath and she bought them loads of new decorations for the tree, even though we'd already got plenty at home, and she took them to see Father Christmas, not Chloe of course, she don't believe it anymore which is a shame. I felt a bit mean because she ain't actually done anything except have a little bit of 'attitude' when she's got Sam as her audience, but I told her that if she let on to the little ones, she wouldn't get a single present and she was to tell Sam that if he's got any bright ideas like that, he'll be bleeding sorry. All this stuff is pretty shit, but I don't want nothing to spoil things for the others and this is the first year that Millie understands anything and she's well excited, well they both are. I don't want it to spoil things for Chloe neither, so I wish Sam would stop all his bollocks so that we can start being a proper family again.

I found myself talking about it to Penny which probably weren't my smartest move, but she told me that all teenage boys are horrible so I asked her if she meant Charlie, but she'd only say that he'd had his moments, which don't surprise me cos I know he'll always be Mr Bleeding Perfect as far as she's concerned. I most likely shouldn't have said anything to her, if she goes blabbing to Charlie he's gonna be well pissed at me.

Looking for something for Bashira for Christmas was well bloody hard, what the fuck do you buy for a teenager who don't wear earrings or make-up or perfume, who don't wear trendy clothes and funky knickers and stuff and I haven't got a scoobie what music she's into now she's at Uni, so I ended up getting nothing, I'll maybe ask Quaseem, or look on-line or something.

 **Charles**

The decision to put in my papers has turned out to be a lot easier than I thought, although I haven't actually done it yet. As long as my resignation is accepted, and it should be fairly straightforward, just thanks and goodbye, but I'll still need to sort out stuff like my pension.

I talked it through with Molly and she was understandably a bit nervous about the future for me, well for us, I've always been a soldier, ever since I met her, but she doesn't want to move from this house and she wants me to be happy doing 'whatever', as she puts it. As long as we can pay the mortgage and I'm not going to spend weeks and months away from home, she'll be happy.

The 'look see' at DEC went exceptionally well and I came away really keen to join them so I was beyond pleased when they made me an offer to start when the bloke currently doing the job comes to the end of his contract in June. He's moving on to a fairly senior role with 'Save the Children' which apparently pays better! The salary at DEC isn't huge, not quite as much as I get at the moment, but I didn't really expect to walk into a job in Civvie Street that pays me in excess of 70k and the salary is enough to cover our mortgage. Anyway there's always the rest of the trust fund if we get desperate. I'll start the ball rolling in January so that I'll be around when the baby's born, the job at DEC is based mostly in Central London, and although I'll be able to work from home some of the time, I can't guarantee that I can do my share of the school run or anything, and Molly should be back to being able to do it by June, at least I bloody hope so.

 **Molly and Charles**

"You didn't wake 'em up did you? And you didn't get them mixed up?"

"No, course not"

Charles had just crept around replacing empty stockings with full ones, even for Chloe, Little Miss Attitude, who despite being eight going on twenty one and too 'grown-up' for any of it, would have been devastated to be left out. Sam had been in Dubai for just over a week and Charles had been expecting a phone call every day filled with the sort of self-righteous outrage that was Rebecca's trademark, but so far nothing, apart from a quick call to say that he'd arrived in one piece, so he could only assume that either she was saving it all up for one big blast or Sam had decided to behave himself.

"What do you reckon to Bashira then?"

"I know, she nearly gave me a Julius Caesar"

"Me too"

"I couldn't think of anything to say, well, apart from fuck me and I didn't think that was the right thing"

"Did you see Quaseem's face?"

Bashira had opted to take a lift home from a 'friend' although she hadn't said who it was, and hadn't arrived until early afternoon, whereupon the friend had pushed straight off, something that Molly had thought was 'sus', bearing in mind they'd started their holiday over a week ago. She'd been a bit worried that Bashira didn't want to stay with them for too long, but she'd changed her mind this afternoon. Bashira had arrived wearing her Hijab with a pair of jeans and a sweater and Molly could have sworn that she was wearing a bit of slap on her face. Quaseem had looked at her and then looked sideways at Molly, but hadn't said a word except for his normal greeting to her, he was always very aware that he wasn't actually related to her and had no actual authority in anything. The kids, of course, hadn't noticed anything different, had just clamoured for her attention which had helped disguise Molly's lack of words.

Quaseem had volunteered to cook that evening, Charles hoped it wasn't in self-defence, and after a quick scan of their larder had taken himself off to Sainsbury's to buy more bits and pieces, something that had made Charles raise his eyebrows, as far as he was concerned they already had more bloody food than Waitrose. He'd done some Middle Eastern thing with lamb and apricots and stuff which they'd all pronounced delicious, although Molly had complained bitterly about not being able to have any wine like the rest of them. He'd said the wrong thing again by suggesting that one small glass probably wouldn't hurt, but she'd immediately said 'best not' and glared at him as though he'd suggested giving her a Class A drug.

"Sorry"

"What have you done now?" He put his arm under her shoulders and pulled her into the circle of his arms, then kissed the top of her head.

"I was a bit, you know, shitty about the wine, wasn't I?"

"It doesn't matter, it was my fault, I should have engaged my brain before I opened my mouth"

"Why are you always so nice to me when I'm being a right moody old cow?"

"Well….."He pretended to think "There's always a chance I'll get my wicked way with you"

"You don't even get that any more" She giggled.

"I know that you're tired, and that you've got a lot on and that you don't have a slowing down gear"

"I'm not that tired tonight"

"Are you sure?" Even as he heard himself say it, he could hear the voice in his head, the one in tune with his erection, screaming 'Are you mad? It's been weeks, what the hell are you doing trying to persuade her she's too tired?'

Before she could even start to think about it and supply the answer he didn't want, he grabbed the hem of his T-shirt that she was wearing and pulled it over her head chucking it on the floor, then ran his hand slowly over the smooth arc of her bump and cupped one of her heavy breasts. He rolled her nipple until it resembled a dark brown thimble, enjoying the way her breathing changed and the way she pressed herself against him as he bent his head and took her nipple into his mouth, grazing her with his teeth at the same time as using his finger and thumb to do the same to the other one.

"Be careful" Her whisper seemed almost involuntary as he started to move in her and he wanted to offer to stop but he wasn't sure he'd be able to, he was having enough trouble controlling himself as it was. She seemed to forget her reservations as she almost held her breath then started to grind against him until her orgasm sent a tidal wave of shudders through her and he experienced the sort of release he hadn't felt in weeks, leaving him spent, exhausted and very happy.

Molly lay in the dark listening to his contented breathing as he slept, it wasn't quite snoring but wasn't far off and put her hand on her stomach as she felt the little tremors and flutters of the baby moving about and tried very hard to drop off and not to start imagining things so that she'd start having a panic.

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Thank you for the feedback, especially about Sam. His behaviour was taken directly from my own son when he was that age, we decided that we would love to foster him out until he was twenty, but unfortunately we didn't know any martyrs.**

 **Hope you enjoyed this chapter, next up: the aftermath of Christmas, a trip to east Ham, Sam comes clean and Charles takes the plunge while Quaseem confides his worries in Molly.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Molly and Charles**

Late Boxing Day afternoon and they had just waved Penny and Bill goodbye as they set out for a long and wet drive back to Bath leaving behind over-tired and fractious children who were already showing signs of being bored with the huge pile of expensive toys, or plastic tat as Charles called it, that they'd received from Father Christmas and over-indulgent grandparents. The addition of Bashira and Quaseem, together with Penny and Bill, had made the house feel slightly crowded and Molly had hated having to ask Bashira if she would mind sharing with Chloe and using the family bathroom for one night so that Penny and Bill could have the room with the en-suite. Bashira had laughed and said of course not, and that Molly should see the bathroom she shared at her Uni accommodation. Shira, as the children called her, had reverted to her Muslim dress, much to Molly's relief, it wasn't that she didn't understand Bashira trying to fit in, she understood it better than anybody, it was just that it was Christmas and she didn't want anyone being upset about anything and she had a feeling that Quaseem had been upset when Bashira had appeared in western dress.

Christmas Day had started at 4.30 with an extremely excited Millie jumping on their bed, dragging her stuffed stocking and demanding that a bleary eyed Charles should 'wake up now, Daddy' and help her open a pack of sweets, swiftly followed by Marcus who was torn between his own excitement and his fury that Millie had got there first. The rest of the morning had been filled with the noise of children powered by a sugar rush running wild with excitement, with a thoroughly confused puppy that eventually peed on the hall floor. Lunch was the usual Penny triumph, although Millie, predictably, steadfastly refused to eat anything she didn't recognise, saying "Don't like it" and pulling a face, rejecting everyone's attempts to get her to taste things.

Most of the household had flaked out after lunch with the exception of Charles and Bill who'd tackled the huge pile of washing up, and Millie, who'd needed the nap more than anyone but who was refusing point blank to close her eyes. Both Quaseem and Bashira had offered to help but Charles had thanked them and turned them down, he was welcoming the opportunity of using his dad as a sounding board for his plans, even though he thought was pretty well set on what he was about to do. The knowledge that his father thought it was an excellent way forward and was all for him leaving the army was both encouraging and comforting, although his dad had never been that keen on his chosen career, so that they'd had to agree to disagree over the years. Suddenly Charles felt a big buzz of excitement, something that had been missing for him for years, ever since Afghanistan in fact, so that he couldn't wait to get on with it.

Sam and Rebecca had Skyped at teatime; they'd spent the day at a Bedouin Tent Hotel out in the desert, sitting on large cushions on the floor to eat their lunch off a low table, which Molly thought sounded bleeding uncomfortable and Sam was full of excitement that he'd been for a camel ride. There was no sign of the sullen Sam that he'd been treating them to, and no sign of the bollocking Charles was expecting from Rebecca, who didn't mention the baby, so that he laughed and admitted to Molly that he wished she'd get on and get it over with, the suspense was killing him.

By the evening Charles thought that Molly looked pale and heavy eyed and exhausted. She'd spent the entire run up to Christmas running herself ragged and except for dinner and the washing up afterwards had refused any help from anyone as she tried to make everything perfect, so that he was filled with a frustrated irritation which had boiled over as he asked her if she was trying for another medal, this time for fucking stupidity, that if she carried on like this she was going to make herself ill and it probably wasn't the best thing in the world for the baby either. He knew as soon as he heard the words coming out of his mouth that lecturing her like a CO was probably the worst thing he could have done, and stood there helpless, as instead of yelling at him to fuck off as she would almost certainly have done normally, she'd burst into floods of tears and refused to speak to him for the rest of the evening.

He'd tried to apologise for what he'd said and for spoiling her day, and to cuddle her in bed but she'd chosen to interpret it as him wanting a repeat of the night before and had turned her back on him. Sometimes he compared the way she was at the moment with the Molly that had been so gloriously happy when she'd been pregnant with the others when she'd loved her body and she'd been irresistible to him so that they'd found it almost impossible to keep their hands off each other. Looking back now, it was as if they had been two different people and he'd give anything to get those days back.

Marcus was curled up on Bashira's lap while she read him one of his new stories and Quaseem was doing the surrogate grandfather bit by building Lego with Millie, who was more interested in trying to pull things apart, but at least she wasn't interfering with Marcus and Shira, while Chloe played with the mobile phone that Penny and Bill had given her, much to Charles' dismay. Molly was dozing on the sofa and Charles wanted more than anything to shake her until she came to her senses, something he wouldn't actually dream of doing, but he was almost at the point of issuing another "will you fucking listen to me" speech which would do no good at all.

As soon as Bashira had moved in with them, she'd set about turning her into one of their children, running around after her, cleaning up after her and worrying about her. Bashira didn't ask for any of the attention Molly lavished on her, on the contrary she appeared to be a bit embarrassed by it, but Molly was adamant and Charles knew it was all tied up with the Afghan guilt she still harboured. Quaseem had unwittingly added another layer to her anxiety when he'd confided that he was worried about whether he'd done the right thing by bringing Bashira into a western culture while expecting her to remain unaffected. Molly had done her best to reassure him, saying that she was sure Bashira would be fine, that she was just 'fitting in', but Charles could tell that this was another area added to her guilt.

The trip to east Ham to see the Dawes family included Bashira, as Quaseem had returned home the day after Boxing Day, and it was its usual noisy chaos, kids screeching as they ran wild, some of them who were old enough to know better in Charles' opinion, with everyone talking at once, and no-one actually listening to what anyone else was saying. Charles felt that Molly was going through the motions with her family, seemingly happy enough, smiling and saying all the right things, but he wasn't taken in, he knew something was wrong, and he couldn't keep on asking her, she was hiding behind her "I'm fine, don't keep hassling me' wall. She didn't really want to talk about the baby, didn't want to speculate on whether it was a boy or girl, or talk about names, nothing, totally different from waiting out for the others. Most people, her mum and sisters and his mum and dad, and everyone else it seemed was taken in by her act, with the possible exception of Nan who also seemed a bit sceptical, but he couldn't talk to her about it, it would seem like gross disloyalty and he thought that Nan would feel the same.

 **Molly**

Charlie and Sam were very late back from Gatwick, there was a hold up with the baggage or something and the weather was really bad, lots of snow and it was getting very icy so I was worried when they was so late, even though Sam rang me when they was in the car. He stared at me like I was a stranger when he came in, and he felt really cold when I hugged him. I was worried for a minute that he would pull away from me, but after a second he sort of hugged me back and for some reason I wanted to cry, probably hormones or something.

Sam was telling his dad how angry his mum was when she was saying about the baby and how she said he should learn some self-control, cheeky bitch, although I think Sam would most likely agree with her, so Charlie said as how she was probably jealous and that it wouldn't surprise him if she'd like another one herself. Sam said immediately how she was too old, but Charlie pointed out that she's only 38, plenty of time left to have more babies if she wants them. Sam was bleeding horrified, it's bad enough your dad having sex and having to see the evidence right in front of your eyes, but not your mum who's practically a pensioner. I pulled a face at Charlie trying to tell him to put a sock in it and stop winding Sammy up cos he might think it's bleeding funny but Sam don't, he looked like he was gonna cry for a minute. Somehow it makes it even more weird that Rebecca ain't said nothing, it's not like her at all.

Sam's light was on when I got up to go to the loo, it's one of the downsides of having kids that you can't shut the bloody door at night in case they call out for you and you don't hear them, and it's one of the downsides of being pregnant that you have to keep getting up to pee. I didn't know whether to go and talk to him or not, I didn't want to set him off or anything, but on the other hand, maybe he was feeling ill or something.

"You okay mate?"

"Yep"

He looked so much younger without his glasses, almost like he was Marcus' age; they both have the same big brown eyes, Charlie's eyes, which made me want to hug him. He was sitting up in bed doing something on his mobile, hopefully not looking at porn or nothing but even if he was there's nothing we can do about it, he's not a little kid any more.

"Do you wanna have a little chat?"

"What about?"

"I dunno, about your holiday or your mum, or why you're so mad at your dad"

"No thanks"

"You know, when I was your age, Sam, I was pretty pissed at me mum, well me dad as well I s'pose, but mainly me mum" She sat in the armchair and pulled her feet up under her dressing gown, it was actually very chilly in his room "I couldn't stand it that she kept getting pregnant, none of me mates' parents were still having kids and I kept thinking how they had no money to look after any more, but it weren't really that, I was sort of embarrassed for them cos I thought they was too old to be still at it" She laughed as Sam stared down at his bed, not meeting her eyes "Bleeding load of nonsense of course, they're still quite young now, let alone then, and they had all the little bleeders because they wanted them, a bit like me and your dad. You do know that none of you was a mistake, an accident, don't you?" She hoped he couldn't tell that she'd just told a big fat lie, the biggest lie she'd told in years. "I got a bit arsey, specially at school, and decided that no-one liked me, so I kept on being 'orrible all the time so that people would get mad at me, which proved to me that I was right and they didn't like me, sounds bloody dumb now dunnit?"

"What made you stop?"

"I didn't really, it'd got to be a sort of habit, then I met your Dad, and I wanted him to like me, well, to love me, so I started to think about how I was with him"

"He does love you"

"Course he does" She paused then laughed "Well he'd bloody better"

"I asked my mum if I could go and live with her"

OGOGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Next chapter: Molly admits that she still feels that the baby is a mistake; Charles says good bye to almost twenty years of his life and Bashira needs help.**

 **I know that asking people to review is a very contentious issue at the moment, but reviews are the only way that we can gauge whether people are still reading what we write, so please let me know.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Molly**

"And?" Molly's first thought was that this was going to kill Charlie.

"Oh, don't worry, she doesn't want me" He sounded as bitter as only a sixteen year old can, especially one who wasn't getting his own way "She said we'd talk about it at Christmas, but she didn't mean it, she never means anything she promises"

"That's not true, Sam, she's your mum, she loves you"

"Does she? She never wants me to be with her though, does she? It's all boarding school and holidays in Bath, not going out there and living with her"

"Well, maybe it's difficult out there, with school 'n that"

"Nooooo, there are tons of kids, British and American and all sorts, I met loads of them who live out there and go to school there, it's not difficult"

"When did you ask her?"

"When Dad told me off for telling Chloe about…." He gestured vaguely in the direction of Molly's bump.

Molly wished more than anything that Charles was with her, she was seriously out of her depth with this conversation, then to her horror she realised that his eyes were welling up with tears and she wanted to kick Rebecca for making him feel that she didn't want him, Molly remembered only too well what it felt like to be pushed out of her family.

"We'd miss you, your Dad would miss you, and what on earth would Chloe do without her big brother showing her how to have an attitude?" She laughed "Thanks for that by the way"

"She's not my sister"

"Course she is, same as Marcus is your brother and Millie your other sister, lucky you, and this one" She put her hand on her swollen stomach "Well, we don't know yet, but we all love you and want you to stop here" She got out of the chair and went over to sit next to him on the bed, putting her arm round his shoulders and hugging him as he put his glasses back on "But please stop showing Millie how to slam doors, she's got enough stroppy habits already" She nudged him and laughed making a reluctant Sam laugh in spite of himself.

"Bloody hell, it's taters in here, is it always like this?" She got off his bed and went to the window, drawing the curtain aside slightly to see what the weather was doing "And it's bleeding snowing like buggery out there, do you reckon we're far enough out in the sticks to get snowed in?"

"I don't know and yes, it's always a bit cold in here"

"I'll get your Dad to sort the heating out tomorrow, now I'm going to bed to put me freezing cold feet on his nice warm ones" She gestured at his mobile phone "Don't stop up all night doing that will you, the kids will be all over you tomorrow, especially when they see the snow, they'll be wanting snowmen and all sorts" She started to leave the room then turned back as he spoke.

"Moll"

"What?" Sam turned his head away so that he didn't have to look at her.

"Don't tell Dad"

"Sammy, mate, I can't keep it secret from your dad" She went back and sat on the edge of his bed "Why don't you want him to know?"

"He'll only yell at mum and they'll have a huge row…." He shrugged "I just want to forget all about it, it's not going to happen anyway" He swiped at the tear that had leaked down onto his cheek with the back of his hand.

"How about if I promise you your dad won't talk to your mum about it" Molly put her arm round him again, she longed to hug him better, but knew she shouldn't.

"How can you?"

"I'll make sure he doesn't, now stop worrying and go to sleep" She kissed the top of his head as he sniffed "And get a bleeding tissue"

 **Charles and Molly**

Molly crept quietly into bed where Charles was apparently fast asleep, trying not to wake him and despite what she'd said to Sam, trying hard not to touch him with her feet which were like blocks of ice, and thought about what he'd said. Her heart was breaking for him, but there was something about what he'd said that didn't quite ring true for her and she couldn't put her finger on it, there was just something.

"Everything okay?"

"I thought you was asleep"

"No" he put the bedside light on, and then pulled her into his embrace so that she was curled up against his side and he kissed the top of her head "I heard you talking to our massive cockwomble in there, what's going on Molls?"

Molly would have preferred to have this conversation when she wasn't absolutely knackered and when she'd had time to sort out what she was going to say to him, she knew he was going to be hurt however she tried to wrap it up. When she'd finished, leaving out the bit about keeping it a secret from him, he swung his legs out of bed and sat on the edge with his head in his hands.

"I'll give her hell in the morning; she's always lecturing me about being a lousy parent, what about her?"

"No you can't"

"What?"

"I promised him that you wouldn't say nothing to her"

"Why the hell did you do that?" He sounded outraged as he turned round and looked at her "You shouldn't have done"

"Well I did and I promised" Molly turned her back, annoyed with him, as he got back into bed.

"Sorry" He put his arm out to pull her close again "It's just…."

"Yeah"

OGOGOGOGOG

There were yells of excitement when the children saw the snow, which was still bucketing down, and bitter complaints from Charles whose Christmas leave was over and who had a very big day in front of him. He certainly hadn't banked on starting that day with having to dig his car out, and had ended up both bitterly cold and sweating, in need of another shower. Molly had suddenly needed to hug him as tightly as she could, as she recognised how separate they'd become in recent months and how their once rock solid relationship seemed suddenly so vulnerable.

"Good luck" She kissed him on the cheek and smiled, she had a vague memory of a day in Salisbury when he'd been going off to face the music with Beck, who was now long gone, about their relationship and how close they'd been that day "And drive carefully"

"I'll be fine, don't worry and I always drive carefully" He cupped her anxious face in his hands and rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip "I love you"

"Love you too"

OGOGOGOGOG

Molly

Bashira and Molly stood watching the children through the kitchen window as they built a snowman, well Sam, Chloe and Marcus had rolled a huge snowball to make the bulk of it while Millie walked backwards and forwards with tiny handfuls of snow and a serious air of purpose about her as she slapped them on to his stomach as the others rolled another ball for his head, and the dog yapped and tried to catch the occasional snowball that Sam or Chloe threw for him, looking deeply surprised when he caught one which burst and dissolved on his nose.

"Don't you want to go out and play in the snow?" Molly couldn't ever remember playing in snow when she was a little girl, any snow that'd fallen had quickly ended up as greyish brown slush on the pavements and roads, slush that had sometimes frozen overnight so that it became an ice rink without ever being fun, except to the boys who made slides for the unwary to slip over on. They hadn't had a garden to play in at home, and now she wanted to go out and run around in it like the kids were doing, except that she was worried she might slip and fall.

"No thank you very much, it looks very cold out there" Bashira was always ultra-polite. "Molly, can I ask you something?"

"Course you can"

"Do you think I was wrong to wear jeans? I think Quaseem thought so, and I don't want to upset him, he's been very good to me, been my family"

"No, of course you weren't wrong" Molly thought for a moment "If you wanna wear whatever, it's up to you, whether you wanna wear clothes like you'd wear back home or stuff like the other girls at Uni, or even take turns between the two, it's your choice. You're a grown-up, and you ain't in the army" She giggled "So no-one can tell you what you can wear or what you can't" She smiled and patted Bashira's arm "Quaseem just wants you to be happy that's all" She smiled again, knowing that not for the first time in the last twelve hours she'd just told another white lie.

The day seemed very long to Molly as she waited for Charles to come home. The children had eventually got too cold to enjoy themselves outside and she'd run out of gloves which weren't soaking wet with tiny balls of ice stuck all over them so they were now getting bored and bickering, it had started snowing again and the novelty of standing at the window watching the large flakes falling had long since worn off. Molly had started to worry about the state of the roads, part of her was expecting Charles to ring any second to say that he'd decided to stop over at barracks, but part of her desperately wanted him to come home, she wanted badly to know that everything had worked out the way he'd wanted it to, that he was okay and to hug him.

 **Charles**

I might have known that the day would be a complete anti-climax; everyone I needed to make contact with was still on leave and the bastard weather made it impossible for anything meaningful to be carried out. Running a bunch of squaddies round and round a drill hall, squaddies who'd obviously spent the last ten days eating and more likely boozing themselves stupid without doing any exercise, or rather no exercise they'd want to talk to me about, left me bored and frustrated. Home is where I should be, sorting out Sam. Christ knows what's got into him, Moll says he's just being a teenager and not to get worked up about it and that she was far worse when she was his age, but I don't remember ever being so miserable at home that I wanted to piss off somewhere else. Mind you I had nowhere else to piss off to and I feel guilty because Sam's had a lot of backwards and forwards and sodding about which I didn't have. But I still feel hurt and I can't help wondering now if it would have been better to have left him in that boarding school, but it's a tad late for that now.

 **Molly**

I was really happy to see his car, the tracks he made this morning are all covered over again as he came in and said he might get my car out of the garage and put his in to stop him having to dig it out again in the morning and was I going anywhere tomorrow and did I mind? I wonder when we got so polite to each other, so like we was being careful not to say the wrong thing. I think it's me mostly, I feel like everything's gone to shit since I fell for this baby, Bashira being here at the beginning when I felt so horrible, Sam, and then me being a nutbar, so scared that it was going to end up in a dish in some A&E somewhere that I've pushed Charlie away all the time. I know he don't understand, he thinks I've just gone off him, but it's not that. I'm scared when we have sex that it's gonna set something off.

All the scans have been okay, and everyone keeps saying that there's nothing wrong with it and I can feel him or her shifting themselves around all the time, but every time the baby has a little nap and don't move for a bit I find myself trying to work out how long it is since I felt it move and prodding my stomach trying to get it to shift itself and every time I get a little twinge anywhere I panic.

Charlie didn't manage to do his thing today, apparently there was no bugger available for him to talk to, so he's gonna have to try again tomorrow. He didn't say how he feels about it and I guess he's a bit upset still about Sam, so I tried hard to show him what I've been feeling all day, put me arms round his waist like I always used to and cuddled him but I didn't say, cos I felt a bit awkward. Chloe came in and asked him if he would take them outside for a snowball fight and Bashira's gone with them. It's not quite dark, but they'll need to come in soon cos it's all getting bit over the top out there, I just wish I didn't feel so left out.

 **Author's notes: Thanks for your lovely feedback; I know I have my absolutely wonderful regulars who I can't begin to thank for their lovely comments and support, but it's really nice as well to get reviews from people whose names I don't instantly recognise and some guests as well. I am grateful to you all for taking the time and trouble.**

 **Chapter 6: Nan makes a visit; Charles manages to resign his commission and has a discussion with Rebecca.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Molly**

"Nan phoned, says she's coming down at the weekend, needs some fresh air or so she says" Molly giggled "Says she wants to see you in your uniform again before you get to be an ordinary wanker and lose your looks"

"Lovely"

"It means that we can go to this mess thingy if you still wanna go" There was a mess dinner that Charles had thought he should put in an appearance at as he'd resigned his commission, a resignation that had been accepted so that he was due to finish for good at the beginning of April. As he wouldn't be around for much longer, he did in fact want to go but not without Molly. They could have got Sam to babysit, but relations between Sam and his father, although cordial on the outside, were still slightly strained. Charles knew he was being childish but he was still annoyed.

.

"Did you ask her to come down and babysit?"

"Might have done"

"Come here" He hugged her as he leaned down to kiss her "What did I do to deserve you?"

"Just remember that when you get the bill for the new dress I'm buying, I ain't got nothing nice to wear that fits"

"You'll look beautiful whatever you wear"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you're still paying for a new dress"

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Charles**

Rebecca had rung Charles a couple of weeks after Sam had told Molly his sob story, apparently to find out why Sam hadn't Skyped, and Charles couldn't stop himself being more than somewhat sarcastic, he felt justified after all the times he'd been on the receiving end of parenting lectures from the 'mother of the year'. After a couple of exchanges it dawned on him that she hadn't got a bloody clue what he was talking about and that all his self-righteous anger was completely misdirected.

"Hold on just a minute, Sam did ask me if he could come and live here with us, but I told him that he has to finish his GCSE re-sits before we can even discuss it, and then perhaps we can look at sixth form …..maybe. He's had too many changes of school, Charles, to let him move again now"

"So he didn't mention that it was anything to do with the baby?"

"No, why would he?"

"And you didn't talk about the baby to him, say I should have more self-control?"

"Well I didn't make a big deal out of it, it's none of my business, but I might have said something like that. I mean let's face it, Charles, you are a bit old to be still having babies and I'd have thought you've got enough kids already"

"Lucky it's none of your business then" He was struggling to hold onto his temper "How many kids we have is down to us, Rebecca, not you, or Sam for that matter, and I'm not the slightest bit interested in your opinion"

"It's got something to do with Sam surely, he lives there with you"

"As you just pointed out we've got three other children living here, soon to be four and none of them, not even Sam, has any right to tell us what to do"

"There's no point in talking to you when you're in this mood, we'll speak again when you're in more reasonable frame of mind"

Rebecca hung up as she always did when she wasn't getting the upper hand in a conversation, leaving Charles listening to the dialling tone and fuming, they still hadn't discussed Sam's apparent urge to go and live with her. Charles wasn't sure who he was most mad at, Rebecca or Sam.

"He lied to us, Moll; well he lied to you, the little bugger"

"I thought some of it sounded a bit sus, but he's a teenager Charlie, teenagers lie to get their own way, I know I did, all the time actually, it's best ignored. He'll know when he's talked to her that you know he's lied and he'll wish he hadn't, so just leave it, don't say nothing"

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Molly**

"Thanks Nan, I know you don't really like coming to the arse end of the world when you could be in the pub with your mates" Molly laughed knowing that Nan didn't go to the pub and that she'd only said it to help her out at Christmas.

"I couldn't miss an opportunity to see that hunk you're married to, now could I?" Nan blew on the top of her tea and took a sip "Before he stops wearing that uniform and becomes bleeding ordinary"

"I thought you came to see me and that you told him you'd gone off him when he got to be 40"

"Don't want him getting big-headed do we?" Nan took another sip of tea "Where is Rambo anyway?"

"Don't call him that, he's gone to get his mess uniform from the cleaners"

"So, madam, you gonna tell me what's been going on here and don't say nothing, cos I could see it at Christmas"

"Not a lot, really, same old, same old…"

"Don't try and bull shit a bull shitter, Molls" Nan poured herself another cup of tea"You gonna tell me, or shall I ask Rambo when he gets back?"

"I dunno Nan, I s'pose ever since I fell for this one" She stroked her bump "Everything's been a bit shit"

"What has?"

"Sam telling lies, causing trouble between his mum and Charlie and Bashira, you know the Afghan girl what's been stopping, the one I bought home at Christmas, I wanted to make everything great for her and I bleeding well couldn't and ….."

"Teenagers cause trouble, that's what they do, you did, your mum did, your brothers and sisters are still at it, and this girl, she's a grown up Moll, not one of your kids, she's older than you were when you joined the bleeding army and you're not her mum …."

"You don't understand about Afghan Nan, …."

"You're not responsible for her, Molls, you're responsible for that one in there" Nan pointed at her bump " And them other three, Oh, and Sam of course, but not her, it' very sad 'n that, but you're not responsible for the bleeding war she was caught up in as a kid and not responsible now she's living here"

"When I lost the other one I decided I didn't want any more kids, I really wanted it you know Nan" Molly could feel the tears pricking the back of her eyeballs "And this one, well I didn't think it through. My mate Laura, you know Brains' wife, she told me at Charlie's party that she'd just copped for another one and I was so fucking jealous and I kept thinking it should be me, you know, I felt so empty somehow, and I'd had a few drinks so …" She shrugged "And a few weeks later I had me head down the bog again every morning. I never even talked it over with him"

"What you saying? That you don't want it? or Charlie don't want it?"

"No, I'm not saying that, I want it, course I want it and Charlie's over the moon, or he was before I started behaving like some sort of miserable cow, keep pushing him away" She looked for a tissue to wipe her tears and blow her nose "I'm scared, keep thinking I'm going to lose it like before, even now"

"Looks pretty set to me "Nan patted her hand "And how much longer you got, a few weeks? " Molly nodded "So even if it come now, which it ain't going to, it'd most likely be fine"

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Molly and Charles**

"Well, bugger me, what has the wind blown in here?" Nan looked Charles up and down "What's this new job of yours, doing photos for catalogues or making films or something?"

"You're making me blush"

Nan looked at Molly who'd come into the kitchen behind him "And here's another one what scrubs up well"

"You look beautiful" Her midnight blue dress was high at the front and skimmed over her breasts and bump, while the back plunged almost to her waist. From the back she didn't look pregnant at all.

"So I should the amount this thing cost" She grinned at him "You don't look too shabby yourself" The scarlet mess jacket with black lapels, white dress shirt and black trousers skimming his slim hips with the black cummerbund round his waist had always suited him, so that Molly was sorry he wasn't going to have the opportunity to wear it in the future.

"It was worth every penny" He smirked at her "Not too late to bed Chloe"

"I'm gonna teach my great granddaughter how to play poker" Nan smiled and ruffled Chloe's hair "For money"

"Sit on your pocket money Chloe, she'll rob you blind" Molly kissed Chloe and then Nan good night and smiled at Charles, she couldn't remember the last time they'd got dressed up and had an evening out, just the two of them alone, well apart from the rest of the officers and their wives from his regiment of the British army.

OGOGOGOGOG

For Molly it was like turning the clock back to years gone by, seeing how his eyes were attracted to her as if she was a magnet, that no matter where he was or who he was talking to every time she looked up his gaze was on her, his wonderful smile lighting up his face as he caught his bottom lip in his teeth and she smiled back, incredibly proud to be with him and for everyone to see that they belonged together.

"How you stand this bloody nonsense without a drink leaves me in awe" A youngish woman with a posh accent came and sat with Molly who was watching Charles talk to his Commanding Officer "Personally I have to be three parts pissed to cope"

"Molly, Molly James" Molly stuck out her hand for the other girl to shake, she was pretty sure she'd never met her before.

"Sally Hobbs" The girl shook her hand "And that's my old man talking to yours"

"Nice to meet you, Sally" Molly was convinced that she'd met the Colonel's wife before and that it hadn't been this girl, this girl seemed far too young.

"Is that your first" Sally gestured with the hand holding her glass towards Molly's bump and Molly saw that she was already slightly pissed as she slopped some of her drink.

"Not exactly, I've already got three others. Have you got any?" Molly was sure that the Colonel had three children the same as her and Charles.

"No, we haven't been married that long, I've got three step kids though, bloody ghastly little sods, they hate me, so thank fuck they're away at boarding school, because I hate them as well" Molly was rapidly re-assessing the level of Sally's drunkenness as they were chatting and decided that she was actually trollied. She caught Charles eye and pulled a face, willing him to read it and come over and rescue her, but he didn't seem to get it and carried on chatting.

"I think I'll go over and say hello to your old man, make myself known. Jack's always telling me to be nice to his officers"

Sally wondered off unsteadily towards Charles and her husband so that Molly was torn between going with her and joining Charlie or using her absence to escape. In the end she stayed where she was then changed her mind when she saw how close Sally stood to Charles and how she batted her eyelashes at him and how he turned his devastatingly sexy smile on her. She'd forgotten how the white-hot sear of jealousy felt as she got up and walked over, putting her arm through his, making sure that the other girl got the message, then moved away slightly from the balding and slightly overweight Colonel and his pissed wife.

"She's bloody ratted" Charles bent down to whisper in Molly's ear.

"Yeah I know" Molly started giggling "That's not the Mrs. Hobbs I met when we first come down here, is it? I don't remember you telling me he'd got divorced or anything"

"Didn't I? Sorry, that's his trophy wife"

"Don't you get any bleeding ideas like that"

"I've already got my trophy wife; I've had her for years"

"What's that s'posed to mean?"

"Look around this room, nearly every bloke here has got his tongue hanging out, and you're mine"

"You don't half talk some bollocks sometimes, don't you?" She giggled "Shall we go home?"

The house was in complete darkness when they drew up and Charles killed the engine. He undid his seat belt but instead of opening the door to go straight in he turned towards her and began to kiss her, deepening the kiss as soon as she started kissing him back running his hand down the side of her breast and onto her hip, putting his other hand behind her head and drawing her closer to him.

"I've been waiting to do that all evening"

"Let's go in, it's more comfortable indoors"

"In a minute, what's your hurry? And undo this bloody thing …" He unclicked the seat belt catch and put his hand back where it had been.

"Charlie James, stop it" She grabbed his wandering hand "I'm not having sex out here, God knows who's watching"

"They won't be able to see anything, the windows will get steamed up in a minute" He shook her hand off his and went back to what he was doing before she'd stopped him.

"Come on, let's go in" She put her hand behind her and unlatched the door.

"Spoilsport"

He threw his mess jacket on the chair and took his bowtie and dress shirt off, dropping them on the floor and went into the bathroom as Molly carefully laid her "gold dust" dress on the back of the chair and stripped off her bra and tights, leaving the triangle of black lace knickers that fitted neatly under her bump in place. She picked up his dress shirt and put it on, leaving it unbuttoned over her swollen breasts and buttoning it so that her bump strained against the lower part of the shirt then sat on the edge of the bed and waited for him to come back.

"What are trying to do to me?" His voice was almost a groan as she stood up and walked towards him "Have you got any idea how hard it is to keep my hands off you?"

"Ditto"

"I'll give you bloody ditto" He began to try and unbutton the small buttons down rest of the shirt then gave up and gave it a sharp tug, sending the remaining couple of shirt buttons pinging onto the carpet, as he lifted her up and laid her on the bed, throwing her knickers on the floor. He stripped off the rest of his clothes, leaving them where they fell and stretched out on the bed, pulling her on top of him, and then started kissing her until eventually she straddled him. It didn't seem to take very long at all until she began to grind against him whispering "Don't stop, don't you dare stop" something he'd begun to think he'd never hear again. The fact that it didn't take long was something else that he was exceedingly grateful for as he was very unsure of his ability to wait out.

Afterwards as she lay curled up against him he felt the baby frantically turning somersaults and kicking or punching in response to Molly's orgasm, and for a second he was worried, expecting her to panic, but she just giggled and accused him of waking the baby up. He began to wonder what the hell was going on, why the sudden sea change in her attitude.

"We should definitely go out more often"

"Tonight, that stupid Sally, she made me realise just how bleeding lucky I am to have you and how I've been playing silly buggers for months, you know, pushing you away all the time cos I was scared of what might happen if we, you know, did stuff ….… and I was soooooo jealous when you smiled at her"

"Of course I smiled at her, she's the bloody Colonel's wife, stupid old sod, and I'm the lucky one, I meant what I said about how all the other blokes were envying me" He butterfly kissed the corner of her mouth.

"You're biased"

"Why didn't you tell me what was wrong, what was worrying you?"

"I thought you'd know" Molly shrugged "Sorry"

"It's me that should say sorry, not you. I should have known but I'm a bloody dickhead aren't I? Sometimes you have to spell things out for me"

"And it was what Nan said earlier"

"What?"

"She said that I should know by now that babies don't come out as easy as they go in"

"Lovely" Charles laughed "Nice way with words she's got hasn't she?"

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Thanks for your support and feedback; I hope you enjoyed this chapter with a much happier Molly.**

 **Chapter 7 sees the arrival of baby number four and Charles starting his new job ….. It will be the last for a while from the Barn so I hope that you've all enjoyed this as much as I've enjoyed writing it.**

 **To CJ who wanted to know what was next, I do have something I'm working on, but it's still in rough draft form so it may be a little while before I'm happy with it.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Molly**

"Shit, shit" Molly was clinging to the back of a kitchen chair, bent over and swaying from side to side "How did I forget how much this bleeding hurts?"

"Well you know what I always say don't you, Molls? It's a lot harder to get them out than it is ….…."

"Yeah, I know, you told me Nan" She gestured with her head towards where Chloe was standing in the doorway hanging on every word "Chloe, come here and kiss me goodbye then go on out and get in the car, you're going to school whether you like it or not and I can hear your dad yelling"

"Why can't I stay here and keep you company until the baby comes?"

"Because I said so, now go on"

"Babies can take a long time, your mum might still be here when you get home from school" Nan was trying to be helpful but Molly was now irritated beyond belief with everyone and everything.

A horrified expression passed over her face as she muttered "Jesus, I bloody hope not"

She'd gone into labour in the early hours, but the contractions, although strong enough to wake her, weren't strong enough or close enough together to show that anything much was happening, but were just enough to stop her being able to drop off again. Charlie had rubbed her back until it began to annoy her, then she'd got up and walked around hoping that standing up and a bit of exercise would do the trick, but nothing had helped speed things up. In the last hour the contractions had begun to feel a bit stronger and had begun to hurt, but after nearly four hours they didn't seem to be that much closer together and Molly was now tired, frustrated and thoroughly pissed off.

Nan had been with them for three days now because Molly had started to panic about there being no-one to stay with the children if she had to go into hospital in the middle of the night and she didn't want to go without Charlie. She still hated hospitals despite all her years as a medic and an EMT and she still had no close friends in the neighbourhood, not close enough to call on at 3.00 in the morning anyway, and The Barn was just isolated enough to have no proper neighbours to shout for, as she could have done in east Ham or even Salisbury.

"Chloe, car, NOW. I won't tell you again" Lieutenant Colonel 'Stern Face' had made an appearance in the kitchen doorway using a tone of voice that took Molly straight back to her army days, one she hadn't heard him use before with any of the children. Chloe raced off yelling 'It's not fair" and "I hate you Daddy" as she went while Charles came over and kissed Molly's cheek saying that he wouldn't be long and was she going to be okay with Nan? She couldn't answer as another iron fist clenched itself round her swollen stomach but nodded and tried to smile as he hovered; jerking her head to indicate that he should go.

"This is the last time I'm doing this, never, ever, EVER again" She muttered through clenched teeth as the contraction ebbed away.

"I've heard that before, your mum used to say that every time" Nan chuckled as she bustled about clearing the breakfast dishes.

"Yeah, but I mean it"

"She used to say that as well"

"It's never going to happen again because he's never coming near me again"

"I've heard that one before too"

"Nan, stop being so bleeding annoying, I'm a trained killer you know"

"I ain't heard that for a while" Nan laughed as she came over and kissed her on the forehead "Go for a little walk round outside while I make a cuppa, get some fresh air, but stay close and don't go wandering off all over"

OOGOGOGOGOGOG

Just over four hours later and Olivia James was born, screaming her head off, to a tired but euphoric Molly, who'd forgotten all about her desire to have another boy as she listened to her daughter screaming blue bloody murder, showing that her lungs at least were wonderfully normal.

"Told you we'd get another Millie, didn't I?" Charles had the sort of smile on his face that you'd want to be able to bottle for when you were having a bad day "She looks just like her"

"Is she okay? You know got all her … everything?"

"Of course she is, she's beautiful and she's perfect, bloody noisy like her sister, but perfect" He laughed as the midwife cut the cord and laid Olivia on Molly's chest, tucking a towel over her and latching her onto her mother's nipple. Charles couldn't help his little pang of guilt and embarrassment that he hadn't managed to cut the cord for any of his five children, something which apparently all other dads do easily.

"Has she got a name?"

The midwife whose name was Sarah, as she'd told an incredibly bad-tempered Molly who'd demanded drugs or an epidural as soon as she'd admitted her. Sarah who was young and pretty had looked at the birth plan that Molly had prepared and lodged with her regular midwife who was, apparently, on a day off, and pointed out that Molly had opted for neither, only for gas and air. Molly was beyond irritated that Saleema, her normal midwife, wasn't there and was muttering about not seeing the bleeding point of always seeing the same person if they weren't there when you needed them. She knew she was being completely unreasonable and was in danger of having a blue mark put on her notes, marking her down as a pain in the bum, but she couldn't seem to stop, none of this was going to plan.

"Are you sure, Mrs James? You did say you didn't want anything"

"Yeah, well that was then and this is now, and I've changed me mind, okay?"

"Have you had an epidural before? This is your…." She looked at Molly's notes "Your fourth baby I believe"

"Yeah, but I never needed nothing before, they was all quick and this is taking for ever" This slim, well-spoken girl was making her feel as though she was asking for something that was wrong for some reason as she began to wonder what the fuck was taking Charlie so long, he was only feeding the pay and display thingy and she needed him here. Despite all his military organisational skills he'd forgotten all about money to feed the machine to cover the exorbitant parking charges and had had to go to the little shop in the foyer and buy a bottle of water to get enough change.

"Well let's see how you're doing"

The girl had finally finished filling in all the admission paperwork and was putting the monitoring band round Molly to check the baby's heartbeat and her contractions as Charles reappeared, much to Molly's relief. He'd fight her battles for her if she asked and she was so close to crying that she was tempted to ask him to do just that and to start doing it straight away.

Her contractions now felt continuous, as soon as one ebbed away another one started building and she wanted to scream "Just bleeding stop it for a bit" but she knew, without this Sarah telling her, that just like with Chloe she'd left it too late for an epidural. She grabbed hold of the gas and air pipe that Sarah handed her and started dragging on the mouthpiece, inhaling it like a desperate drug addict as Sarah gave her a quick internal, apologising all the time if she was hurting but Molly was beyond caring. The relief when she told her that she could begin pushing as soon as she felt the urge, was overwhelming as all talk about drugs and epidurals was forgotten.

"Her name's Olivia"

"Livvie"

"Charlie, we said we wouldn't do that"

"She looks like a Livvie" He laughed "Actually she looks like a little tiny Millie doesn't she? I'm really outnumbered now"

"Were you hoping for a boy this time?" Sarah had unlatched Olivia, who'd immediately started yelling again and had taken her to the other side of the room to weigh her and to do the assessments, an interruption to her sucking which had her strenuously objecting.

"No" Sort of" Charles and Molly both spoke at the same time then looked at each other and laughed as he leaned over and kissed her on the tip of her nose.

"Well, maybe next time" Sarah had dressed Olivia who'd finally stopped crying and wrapped her in her shawl before handing her to Charles to have a cuddle before he took her back to Molly.

"There ain't gonna be a next time" Molly sounded totally emphatic as Sarah laughed.

"That's what they all say; bet I'll see you back here next year"

"No you bleeding well won't"

"They say that as well"

 **Charles**

Charles sat by the window rocking his tiny daughter who'd been sucking frantically on the back of his crooked little finger but who'd dropped off again for the moment. She had begun to fuss and rout around for a nipple a short while ago, and as Molly was fast asleep he'd lifted her from her plastic cot and tried to settle her although he was aware that it was just a matter of time before she started yelling for the real thing as she'd started to whimper and fuss again even though she still looked to be asleep.

As he sat and looked at her little face, his doubts about what he was doing had coming crashing through his brain, Christ he had huge responsibilities, Molly and four children, five now with this one, so what the hell did he think he was doing risking their security on a whim. The whole of the last month had been about 'last times', and 'good byes' and about consigning almost twenty years of his life to history and he'd never been less sure of what he was doing than he was now, when it was too late to change his mind. All the excitement of a new challenge had slowly drained away as the weeks had gone on and being at home for the past two weeks with another four to go before he started at DEC had left him with too much time to reflect and had underlined for him that he might have made a very bad decision. Molly had suggested that they should have a 'good bye' party and invite the lads, but it would have to wait, maybe until his birthday, because she wasn't going to do it nine months pregnant.

Olivia started to fuss so he gave her his crooked finger again to try and put off the moment when she started yelling for food and woke Molly, who was exhausted and had had trouble dropping off after she was born. He couldn't help the pang of regret that this was never going to happen again, that it was another 'last time' and that Olivia was going to be their last baby. He recognised that this had been a difficult, almost fraught, pregnancy for Molly, and that she'd meant every word when she'd said she didn't want any more and that he should take steps to make sure of it. She'd actually said she was sending him to the vet with Patch to get him seen to, until he'd pointed out that Patch was going to be castrated and he drew the line at that and that he didn't think she'd like it much either. Molly had laughed and said "Whatever", but Charles recognised that despite his reluctance, he should do what she wanted, it was the right thing to do, it was just that he was such a coward.

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Mollie and Charles**

Livvie, as she was now called by everyone, might look like Millie, but there the resemblance ended. Millie had been a difficult baby, taking hours to feed and messing her mother about, using her as a dummy and then screaming blue murder when Molly got fed up and took her off the breast and tried to settle her to sleep, only sleeping for short periods of time before she wanted feeding again and getting her days and nights mixed up. Livvie only cried when she was hungry or wet, fed like a dream, burped obligingly then went straight back to sleep. At six weeks old she was just beginning to smile and her father was deeply in love with her. He hadn't spent anything like as much time with any of the others when they were this age, the army had always intervened, and he was fascinated with her. The fact that he was at home meant he could also spend a lot of time with the others so that not even Millie was jealous, in fact the novelty of a baby in the house had now worn off and they all just accepted her, even Sam.

The one thing he hadn't done was arrange 'the snip', he kept meaning to, in fact he kept promising to sort something out, but he just couldn't bring himself to actually do it, and his start date at DEC was now looming and he couldn't be less than 100% fit for that. Molly had laughed and called him a bleeding coward and pointed out that the dog had been fine afterwards, but he'd just shuddered and said that that was different, and anyway Patch didn't know what he was missing.

"Have you got everything, clean hankie, been to the loo?" Molly grinned at the sight of her husband looking drop dead gorgeous wearing a suit and a blue shirt as he got ready for his first day. She knew he hadn't slept particularly well the night before, even though they'd made love and he looked a bit weary round the eyes.

"Stop taking the piss"

"I'm not, well, I'm not really, I know you'll go and knock'em dead, well don't actually kill anybody will you, play nicely with the others" She was starting to laugh, trying to make him smile; he looked so serious "Don't look so worried, you'll be fine, better than fine, you'll be fucking brilliant"

She spent most of the day watching the clock go round and wondering what he was doing and hoping he was okay and then tried to work out just how many times over the years she'd sat at home worrying about him, either because he was in physical danger or he had some sort of problem to solve and why time goes so slowly when you're bloody willing it to speed up.

"How'd it go?" He was hot and a bit dishevelled from the commute, jacket slung over his shoulder and tie missing completely.

"I met about five thousand people, can't remember any of their fucking names or what they do, had a couple of meetings with another thousand or so, can't remember who any of them are either or what they do" He turned and beamed at her "It was fucking awesome"

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Thanks for all your reviews and kind comments; as you know this is the last visit to the Barn for a while; I may very well go back in a while, but I'll have to wait for inspiration to come knocking again first.**

 **I am now working on something entirely new so I hope you'll enjoy that when I finally knock it into shape.**


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